Although the Malabar flying frog uses many of the communal breeding sites at
Luckunda, it also breeds in areas from which most other frogs are absent, particularly
above wells, water tanks and garden ponds. At Luckunda the species is common and
widespread. It was usually found in trees or bushes, very rarely on the ground or in the
water. In bushes, and coffee plants it was often encountered with R.lateralis, P.
pseudocruciger and Rana temporalis. In trees it was found alone above 4m, with P.
pseudocruciger and R. lateralis below 4m. P. pseudocruciger is absent from at least some
sites used by R.malabaricus, but R.malabaricus was found at all sites where P.
pseudocruciger was present.

Mean weight of 20 males was 7.45g (+/- 1.03). A 13.5g female weighed 9.75g after egg
laying, a loss of 27.8%. This represents almost twice the investment of female
Polypedates pseudocruciger (see below) and suggests that female flying frogs lay only
one clutch of eggs per year. Egg masses are laid on a vertical surface, usually 10-30cm
above water, but sometimes as high as 1m above the water. Sometimes the bottom of the
mass touches the water. Time from first appearance of froth to end of amplexus was two
hours, eggs begin to hatch after five nights. Two hundred and twenty tadpoles hatched
from a single mass over two or three days. Metamorphs of this species are very similar to
those of R. lateralis, and were rare compared with P. pseudocruciger. Sekar (1990) stated
that tadpoles took 68 days to complete metamorphosis.

Rhacophorus malabaricus

This species
has a variable calling pattern. Usually the call is made up of a series
of loud pulses of about 0.03 seconds duration, interspersed either by a
silent interval or by a train of lower amplitude pulses. Energy is
concentrated between 0.07 and 1.79kHz, with dominant frequency at
1.26kHz, a strong spectral sideband at 1.79kHz and weaker sidebands at
5.50, 11.03, 12.99, 17.65 and 18.19kHz.